PARTISAN REVIEW
economic and political levels, the process of federation, or Europe
is in all probability finished. It will be reduced either to the slavery
of the Communist empire, or to a series of fragile (and doubtless
untenable) military outposts of America.
We can draw an instructive analogy from an earlier period of
modern history. The first centers of post-Medieval civilization were
the small Italian city-states. These progressed and prospered to an
extent that will always remain astonishing. But by the end of the
fifteenth century, their narrow political limits had become barriers
that prohibited further development. They failed to make the creative
political transition to the nation-state, and they were therefore replaced
by the centers to the north. In our day, it is the boundaries of the
nation-states that have become the barriers. The divided economies
are being clogged and choked behind them.
To this door also, France is now the key. England can help
toward federation (and her help is necessary), but England has
never been part of the Continent. Europeans cannot forget in a year
or two the centuries during which England's policy was always to
sustain the division of the Continent. Germany has been crushed;
and, besides, German initiative would appear to Europeans as a
move not toward federation but toward imperial German resurgence.
The other nations are too small, or too weak. The lot falls to France.
If
she refuses the draw, she will not thereby escape the general
disaster.
I do not think that General de Gaulle and the Rally of the
French People have yet made sufficiently clear their international
attitude. Is your perspective one of a narrow nationalism and chauvin–
ism, a throwback to the nineteenth century, and today reactionary
in the extreme, even absurd? Or do you believe that France should
take open leadership in the advance toward a federated Europe?
Malraux:
If
General de Gaulle has always said: "France,"
he has never said: "France alone." I think I am right in remembering
that it was he who took the initiative, through a famous interview
in the
Times)
in proposing an understanding
between
the different
countries of western Europe which was sufficiently precise to make
the Soviets speak of the "Western bloc."
It is obvious that we are not going to ignore the influence that
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